


Breathe Fire and Water

by PassingInTheNight



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, I can't really remember what the Korra seasons said about what they were like in old age, Non Canon Divergence, as far as I know at least, mentions Aang and Katara relationship, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 15:23:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11580810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassingInTheNight/pseuds/PassingInTheNight
Summary: Toph can feel the heartbeats of others. She can tell when they're lying, but she can also tell when a heartbeat picks up in response to something else. Zuko and Katara marry other people and they never voice a word outside the boundaries of friendship. But Toph has felt their untold responses to each other for decades now.





	Breathe Fire and Water

It wasn't that Toph spent all day, every day listening in to the workings of the people around her. After the war had ended there was always too much to do to worry about the little tells the hearts of everyone around her gave off. Sure, knowing when someone was lying became an important part of her work in the police department of Republic City, but in more casual settings, she avoided that particular ability.

Well, avoided it in all but one situation: when Katara and Zuko were in the same room together.

In a ridiculous twist of fate, it was her, loud mouthed Toph, who had to keep a secret for 70 some years now.

That running time began so long ago it almost makes her ache to think of the youth they had then. It was the Western Air Temple and the stress of the impending fight and worry of attack and of failure. But sometimes it wasn't any of that. 

Sometimes it was sitting around fires in companionable silence, letting the warmth settle in their bones to fight the chill of expectation. In those times, there was a lull to the noise she normally had to pay such close attention to, and it opened the door to an infrequent consideration. Toph had only ever mentioned the lie-detector use of her ability. Yet, the heart doesn't just change its rhythm in response to lying.

Night had fallen on their little hideaway in the abandoned temple and the fire didn't have the sense of danger that normally accompanied its presence in their lives. As Toph sat, she put her hands to the ground and listened to the vivacity of her friends, all the life they held onto. It was calming, like the slow drift of unseen sparks rising from the flames in front of her.

Over 70 years and its beginning was brought in on something like a wave, one that has yet to really recede.

Katara, with all her calm defiance to the world, had come sat down by the fire and two heartbeats picked up. That running time began about 10 seconds later when Toph looked past Aang's frequent and uninteresting reaction, to the heartbeat of their newest member.

Toph could tell that Zuko had no outward reaction, no shifting, no acknowledgement of the addition to the group. He kept himself still and looking forward. However, he couldn't manage indifference of the heart.

At the time, Toph had been quick to dismiss this reaction as the tempers flaring between Katara and Zuko. Problem was... it kept happening.

Upon the return from their "field trip", it became more noticeable and not so one-sided. As the dangerous drama of the group's life continued on, there were moments of stillness where Zuko and Katara unknowingly admitted to Toph that they cared... more than they knew.

They didn't have much contact once it came down to the final stretch before the comet. It wasn't as if they were openly choosing to hangout with each other.

Sometimes they'd just end up sitting in the same vicinity, letting the quiet be a comfortable blanket to cover themselves with. Like they were connected through the rising heartbeats in their chests, but acknowledging that connection wasn't something they could bear.

Then the war was over. Their life plans were being decided then and there. They all had important leaders to become, peace to bring, and dreams to fulfill. 

Katara and Aang became the thing Aang had always wished for. However, the union left Toph with an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. As if she'd forgotten to get something done and would likely never remember what it was. 

Like Aang, the relationship between him and Katara was based in the sky, it was energetic and loving, and it flowed like the wind. So, Toph could never pin it down. She could never seem to understand it because she couldn't really feel their heartbeats reverberate in the ground beneath her feet.

With Zuko and Katara however, their relationship was grounded. Toph never had a doubt in her mind about the way they felt, not really. Just like she knew that at each step she would find the earth, she knew every time one of those two kids stepped into a room with the other in it they'd have a reaction like few others she had sensed.

And eventually they weren't kids anymore and time had worn their edges and they had built lives that didn't follow the beat of the other's heart.

It almost kind of hurt Toph to know that they couldn't sense the vibrations. The Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady belonged to the dark, but Toph supposed the people behind those masks had never learned to look past it.

The last time Toph saw Zuko and Katara they were still fighting the good fight, but eventually the flame must go out and the water dry up. They were both widowed by that point and didn't have much in the way of admitting something beyond friendship. Nevertheless, old habits die hard and they could do little to change a choice made decades ago.

Even to that day, the thrum of their hearts picked up in the presence of one another. They were more open to affection than they had been at that fire when they were just teenagers. The banter was the same as it had always been and Toph smiled to herself that they always found each other time and again, no different than they had left.

On one of the calm afternoons of this small reunion, Katara and Zuko drifted outside, once again encased by a silence that didn't need to be filled. They were at the ancestral home of Zuko's on Ember Island, where Avatar and friends had all waited anxiously for the coming of days those many years ago. The two eventually made their way to sitting on a small rock cliff overlooking the sea. 

Toph could hear them laughing some from inside, only knowing their location from the sound of their voices. Yet, they talked with an edge of cautiousness that had never been lost. 

Food had been prepared, so Toph began to move outside to call in her companions. 

As she finally stepped on to the ground, her element, she sensed those heartbeats and their heightened staccato. 

However, in that moment, she felt more than heard Zuko and Katara take a small, but slow, breath in a syncopated dance. As they simultaneously let out the air from their lungs and sharp daggers from their chests, the heartbeats settled and fell into a steady rhythm that Toph had never felt before, at least never from them.

Katara's head fell lightly on Zuko's shoulder. He turned his head toward her own and stilled. They needed just a moment. To breathe together. To be together.

Then, it was over and they sat apart once again.

Toph sees now that it was acceptance. Zuko and Katara had let go of all those years they only saw each other momentarily, with spouses by their sides. And they let in the acceptance of taking the time they had, no matter how far the divide between them must remain.

Just as it was with those two kids, fire and water could not be brought together. It was just never meant to be. But, in the fading years of their lives they discovered the balance the earth had found. A balance that dictated their love could reach across the limitations of nature and breathe fire and water.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I always found Aang and Katara's relationship pretty ridiculous and uninteresting. I thought I'd rectify it a little bit with this story. My tenses might be all over the place and I think I was trying so hard to make it abstract that I ended up writing dumb shit that didn't make any sense so please excuse all that. Also, I keep editing little things that I'm finding that bug me, so if you ever come back to this and feel like you're in the uncanny valley, that's why. Thanks again if you made it all they way through the story and I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
